The Complete History of Goku's Kaioken, Super Kaioken and Kaioken Blue

The Kaioken is one of Goku's signature techniques in Dragon Ball Z, and by the end of this piece I want to cover everything about it, from the original Kaioken to Super Kaioken to Kaioken Blue.

Kaioken translates to Lord of the Worlds Fist, and it belongs to King Kai

Kaioken, which was mispronounced as "keoken" in the original Dragon Ball Z dub, is the technique that King Kai, or Kaiosama, invented. It is literally his technique, which is why it carries his name. Later dubs, including Dragon Ball Super and Kai, fixed that pronunciation, even though they never fixed the similar mispronunciation of "Saiyan."

An easy way to translate Kaiosama is Lord Kai, since Kai is the lord of the worlds, so the move literally translates to Lord of the Worlds Fist. Toei's own subtitles for Dragon Ball Super translate it as "King Kai Fist," which is a decent translation even though his name isn't really King Kai. Either way, Kaioken basically means Lord of the World Fist or Fist of the World King, though we all just call it Kaioken now.

Dragon Ball Super has taught us that the gods have unique abilities mortals have never heard of, and the Kaioken is one of them. Nobody used it until Goku met Kaiosama at the end of Snake Way and trained with him to master it. It is worth wondering whether any of the other three Kais besides the North Kai also know the Kaioken, though as I put it, "the world may never know."

Only Goku has ever actually used the Kaioken on screen

People often ask whether Goku's friends like Piccolo and Yamcha, who also trained with King Kai, know the Kaioken. Even though some video games might suggest they do, we have never seen these characters use the move. The only person who has actually used it, setting aside video games or Dragon Ball Heroes, is Goku. It's his move.

Goku learned two techniques that became signatures from his training with King Kai: the Genki Dama, or Spirit Bomb, and the Kaioken. We do not actually see a visual representation of the Kaioken until Dragon Ball Z episode 29, which lines up with manga chapter 226, when Nappa is about to attack Krillin and Gohan. Goku screams Kaio Ken, is surrounded by a red aura, and double punches Nappa in the spine, finishing him with one burst of power. Nappa was hurt so badly he was paralyzed shortly after, which shows how much pain the technique inflicted.

The Kaioken's multipliers grew from times two to times one hundred, and later became invisible

As Goku evolved in his training he learned to tap into higher Kaioken multipliers: times two, times three, times four, later times ten and times twenty, and even times one hundred in one of the Dragon Ball Z movies. What's interesting is that as Goku normalized the technique with his body through training, he also learned to mask its visual representation. During the fight with Frieza, when Goku's friends wondered why he wasn't using the Kaioken, Kaiosama revealed he had actually been using it the whole time and it just could not be seen. That horrified Goku's friends, because they had believed the Kaioken might give him a chance against Frieza, and the reality was that it didn't.

The Frieza Saga is really the last time the Kaioken was truly relevant in the core story. It doesn't show up much in the Android Saga or the Buu Saga, though it appears in the anime-only Other World Tournament filler arc and in some of the Dragon Ball Z movies, before making a full return in Dragon Ball Super. For most of the latter part of Dragon Ball Z, it was phased out.

According to the Daizenshuu guidebooks, the Kaioken amplifies ability but risks destroying the body

Most of Goku's training on King Kai's planet happened off screen, so the manga never actually shows how the technique was taught. To explain how it works, I had to look outside the manga to the Dragon Ball guidebooks. Daizenshuu 2, page 212, and Daizenshuu 4, page 13, describe the Kaioken as "a technique that instantly amplifies the ki inside one's body, multiplying all that person's abilities including power, speed, defense, etc." It is described as extraordinarily effective against strong opponents, but because it is impossible to multiply far beyond one's own abilities, experimenting with an unreasonably high Kaioken "might destroy one's own body."

Per the guidebooks, when the user's battle power is 8,000, their limit is times two, and when they are at three million, their limit is times ten. Because real battles are harsh, Goku often had to use the Kaioken above those limits. The North Kai designed the Kaioken, but Goku was the first person able to master it, and King Kai even told him not to go beyond times two. Unfortunately Vegeta was too much for Goku to handle without pushing past that limit, so he had no choice.

There is also an inconsistency worth noting: the base Kaioken and Kaioken times two appear to have the same multiplier of times two, which raises the confusing question of whether times two would actually give you times three. My own read is that the base Kaioken is an amplification, and that times two doubles that amplification from there, and so on as the multipliers climb.

Captain Ginyu's failed body swap shows the Kaioken is a mental and spiritual technique, not just a physical one

One clue to how the Kaioken really works comes from the fact that Captain Ginyu, after taking over Goku's body, could not tap into the Kaioken. The explanation is that the Kaioken is not just physical, it is also mental and spiritual, requiring an integration of mind and body. If Goku's body isn't properly trained to handle it, it falls apart, and if his mind can't tap into it, he can scream Kaioken all day and nothing will happen.

Since the start of Dragon Ball, Goku had undergone constant rigorous training, so by the time he learned the Kaioken in the Vegeta Saga his body was already primed for it. After the fight with Vegeta, he realized he needed to reach higher multipliers, so he trained his body again on the way to Namek, non-stop, using the same principles we use in the real world: intense physical training, repetition, integrating body and mind, and building endurance to take the damage the Kaioken itself inflicts before he even gets into combat.

Goku taps into a deep form of ki inside his body so that his cells become tight and filled with energy, which is then ignited to turn the Kaioken on. As a side note, Chichi's use of the Kaioken in the Garlic Jr. Saga is just a gag moment, not the real technique, and it isn't in the manga either.

The Kaioken's mechanics appear rooted in Taoist energy concepts and Tibetan monks' fire meditation

From a Taoist perspective, which informs a lot of Dragon Ball's techniques, the energy is drawn from the dantian, an energy field in the lower body, and sent out to the chest, back, head, and the four limbs. That ki travels underneath the skin, causing muscles to bulge and flesh to thicken around bone and muscle to withstand high amounts of energy. There isn't an actual flame, but the effect is similar, since it dramatically raises body temperature without actually burning anyone.

As that energy reaches Goku's skin, it gives off heat, wind, and electric energy that ignites, opening up his cells, molecules, and atoms briefly so he can deliver his strongest blows. Because of this, cells in his body die and need time to be replaced, which is why Goku needs to rest afterward. It seems clear that this idea was drawn from, or at least resembles, the concept of Tibetan monks' fire, where practitioners can withstand extreme heat without pain. In 1981 a Harvard Medical School researcher reportedly found that Tibetan monks could raise their body temperature by up to 17 degrees using a meditation technique called forceful breath, and the Kaioken plays like the Dragon Ball version of that, amplified enormously.

My own belief is that the Kaioken was tailor made for a Saiyan to use, given Saiyan genetics and endurance, which lets Goku keep fighting rather than simply burning out. That could be another reason his friends never use it: their bodies may not adapt to it the way a Saiyan's does. A lot of this information on the Taoist and cultural background comes from Derek Padula's research at the Dao of Dragon Ball.

Super Kaioken debuted in the anime-only Other World Tournament arc against Paikuhan

The last time Goku used the Kaioken in Toriyama's original manga was against Frieza. After that, Toriyama stopped using it because once Goku discovered the Super Saiyan transformation, the Kaioken became largely obsolete in the manga. That didn't stop Toei Animation from bringing it back, including in the Other World Tournament arc, a five episode filler arc set after the Cell Games in Dragon Ball Z episodes 195 to 199.

In that arc we saw for the first time what happens when Goku combines the Super Saiyan transformation with the Kaioken, producing Super Kaioken. Paikuhan was built up as one of the most powerful warriors in the tournament and a serious rival to Goku, faster and stronger than him at the time. Because Goku had not yet learned Super Saiyan 2, his alternate method of closing the power gap was to stack the Kaioken on top of his Super Saiyan form. To be clear, this is Kaioken stacked on top of Super Saiyan, not the other way around, and that order matters.

This concept was exclusive to the anime and not in the original manga, but a similar idea returned in Dragon Ball Super with Kaioken Blue. In Super, the old Kai mentions that using the Kaioken with Super Saiyan is impossible and very lethal because of the intense emotional turmoil the Super Saiyan transformation creates, making it hard for Goku to control the Kaioken's requirement that mind, body, and spirit stay in alignment.

Super Kaioken still falls short of Super Saiyan 2 because it damages the body

Fans have long asked whether Super Kaioken, as a multiplier on top of Super Saiyan, is effectively equal to Super Saiyan 2. My answer is not really, mainly because the Kaioken is unstable, especially stacked with Super Saiyan, a point Dragon Ball Super explained decades after the Z episode aired. It's worth remembering that full power Gohan, even before reaching Super Saiyan 2, was already stronger than full power Goku, even accounting for the possibility that Goku got a boost from dying and having a more stable body in the afterlife.

The real problem with Super Kaioken compared to Super Saiyan 2 is stability and stamina. The Kaioken burns and damages the body, as shown repeatedly in both Z and Super, while Super Saiyan 2 carries no such drawback. That raises a hypothetical: could Goku have used Super Kaioken against Cell? "Possibly that is a possibility," but the cost is the question, since he likely could have sustained it for only seconds, maybe a minute at most, before burning himself out, and Cell was known for regenerating and for incredible stamina. It's a debate that can go either way, but no matter how you slice it, Super Kaioken remains far more dangerous than Super Saiyan 2.

Kaioken Blue debuted against Hit and started as only a 10 percent chance of working

Kaioken Blue, also called Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken, first appeared in Dragon Ball Super during Goku's fight with Hit in the Universe 6 versus Universe 7 tournament arc. It's currently unclear whether this was Toriyama's own idea, since there does not seem to be an interview where he discusses it, and it looks like another concept invented by Toei that built on the original Super Kaioken idea from Z. Goku says himself that he had been working on it for some time as a possible way to beat Beerus in a rematch, but pulled it out early because Hit pushed him so hard. Goku would use Kaioken Blue several more times through the rest of the Dragon Ball Super anime, though it was notably absent from Dragon Ball Super Broly, which leads some fans to believe Toriyama did not create it. It should also be noted that Kaioken Blue is a technique, not a transformation. When Goku first used it against Hit, he had not yet mastered it, and it was said to carry only a 10 percent chance of working against a 90 percent chance of failing and possibly destroying his body.

Because Super Saiyan Blue seems to have an instinctively calm ki control, unlike the more explosive and unstable Super Saiyan God, the Kaioken should in theory suit it better, letting Goku focus mind and body in combat without losing control the way he might with the rage based standard Super Saiyan form. That reads almost like an acknowledgment that stacking Kaioken on regular Super Saiyan, as in the old Other World Tournament arc, could have shredded and killed him.

Kaioken Blue let Goku out speed Hit's time skip, and reportedly left him in pain afterward

What makes Kaioken Blue notable is that Goku, who was struggling against Hit's time skip, was able to out speed it once he activated the technique, a feat some fans read as Goku surpassing space time itself, though interpretations vary depending on how one understands time skip. During that fight Goku was using a times ten Kaioken Blue, and later in the series he would use it at times twenty for even greater speed and power.

During the Hit fight, Goku appeared able to fight effectively without any backlash, and it was only after the fight ended and he dropped back to his base form that the after effects hit him, an entire episode was reportedly dedicated to Goku's muscle spasms and his body trying to heal from the strain. It seems Goku was able to overcome that handicap later, since he used Kaioken Blue at higher levels afterward without the same visible consequences. It's also worth noting that Kaioken Blue appears to be the first instance in Dragon Ball of a double aura, the red Kaioken aura layered closer to the blue Super Saiyan Blue aura, a visual later echoed in Trunks's Rage form.

Whether Goku used Kaioken Blue against Jiren in the manga is genuinely disputed

The manga version of events is murkier. In black and white, we never explicitly saw Goku use Kaioken Blue against Hit, Goku Black, or Jiren, though it was discussed once. During Goku's fight with Jiren, he increases his power and Krillin questions whether he's using the Kaioken, with Whis suggesting Goku is drawing deep from his reserves for a temporary boost, and Tenshinhan asking if it is the same principle as Kaioken, implying it is similar but not exactly the same. V Jump magazine later stated that this was in fact Kaioken Blue, but the colored edition of the Dragon Ball Super manga did not show the Kaioken Blue aura in that scene.

As I put it, "I don't know exactly what the hell's going on," whether the colorist made a mistake or V Jump got it wrong, which V Jump has done before. Based on the statements and the coloring, which comes down two against one, my own lean is that it was not Kaioken Blue in that scene, though it could still be a coloring mistake. Either way, even without a confirmed on page appearance, it seems accepted that Kaioken Blue exists within that continuity. For what it's worth, Vegito also used Kaioken Blue in the Dragon Ball Heroes show and manga, though that property tends to do its own thing.

Was Super Kaioken ever really a viable path to beating a foe like Cell, or was it always too costly to sustain?